Information and insight from the A&M Webmasters

There were so many great takeaways from the conference last week that I can’t adequately sum them all up in one post. I will therefore break things up over a couple of weeks so that each one remains easily to follow and retain.

Going in to HighEdWeb I was already starting to think in terms of how to better frame everything we do to align more closely with the mission of the university. Too often we get caught up in projects because we think they are “cool” or invest importance in the project for the project’s own sake or because it is important to us personally. We instead need to think in terms of how the project can best serve the goals of the university as a whole.

This was brought home in the first of the track presentations that I attended. Beloit College produced an amazingly cute and funny video starring their campus squirrels. Everyone loved it and talked about it…but it didn’t actually drive increased admissions numbers.

Another presentation described a web team that many of us are familiar with. They were in an environment where they were seen as order takers and no one in their organization would say “no” to a new request. This led to a mass of projects and priority being given to those who yelled the loudest. They were able to turn the situation around. Their advice is to go to leadership with a definite plan. These people probably already know about the problem, and if you get in front with a plan they will likely support you. Understand, though, that this might wind up increasing your work load for at least the short run. The key to to have a plan, identify priorities, and focus your resources on the priorities. Don’t be afraid to outsource projects that are not on the priority list, just be sure to contract for post-launch support as well.